A Table of Debt
by thein273
Summary: Leo Valdez has the distressing misfortune of winding up marooned on a mysterious girl's island, and she has to be the ONLY person he has ever met capable of both being sickeningly nice to him, and also putting him in his place every chance she gets. It's all kind of hot, if he thinks about it. Not OOC Leo/Calypso. Beware, they may not get together by the end of this. I don't know.


**So I encounter this _issue _with _The House of Hades _- I really like the Leo/Calypso pairing, but it was terribly done.**

**I had to reread the chapter when she showed up about a hundred times, so this idea has been festering in my head for awhile. Based on her characterization in _The Battle of the Labyrinth, _how would Calypso react to Leo's arrival (and crash-landing) on her dinner table?**

**Note: I could easily open up my book and copy the three-some pages of text preceding Calypso's appearance - or I could spare myself the trouble and start this story immediately after Leo crash-lands on her table. (In other words, those of you who haven't read _The House of Hades _are going to be so infinitely lost it is less than funny - it's downright hysterical.)**

**Also Note: I have no sympathy for any of your pain unless it mirrors my own. (Maniacal evil laughter)**

**Additional Note That Isn't a Note But Actually a Disclaimer: I do not own the source material. It's Rick Riordan's and Hyperion Publishers. The genius that is Leo Valdez far eclipses any characters I might engender of my own thoughts . . . except maybe my original, Kirk, but that's a completely different you have to purchase to understand.**

**And no, I'm not published yet. I'm working on it.**

**Anyway, tell me what you think of this. It's pretty brief 'cuz I'm dipping my toes in the waters of a romance plot, and I'm looking for reception. So . . . receive, and then review. Or favorite. Or do something that gives me the idea you like this enough for it to continue.**

I: Leo

**Leo's everything hurt, **but he was more concerned about the Archimedes sphere. If he had broken the single most valuable possession he had, he'd rewind time just so he could smack into the water and die. That is, if time travel was actually possible through simple mechanics, which Leo wasn't entirely convinced it _wasn't _. . .

He had created quite a sizable crater in the beach, which he staggered around stupidly. There was a weird fogginess in his thoughts, a unique single-mindedness that might have worried Leo if it wasn't the sphere he was focused on; he needed to find it in this smoldering hole. His feet tripped over themselves on the way down the steep crater, and Leo rolled through the still-hot soil painfully. His head spun nauseatingly, and he stayed himself long enough to throw up.

"My gods!" It was a girl's voice, but Leo couldn't really turn his head to see who. He was losing consciousness again, but he wasn't going to pass out before he found the sphere. Numb fingers patting the warm ground helplessly, Leo tried to focus his eyes enough to discern smoking wood from invaluable mechanics. No such luck.

"Stop," the girl ordered him. "Stop, you're hurt. Will you stop?" Someone restrained Leo around the arms, and that fogginess hit him hard. He started to black out, but not before he spotted the round metal ball of whirling wires and random baubles. Leo reached toward it. "What? What do you need?"

"Sphere . . ." Leo slumped into the girl's arms, and she laid him on the ground gingerly. Leo heard her mutter something about "the only hero to ever destroy more than my hope" before she picked up his life's work and held it up in puzzlement. She was pretty, Leo realized, with long caramel hair and shining, life-filled amber eyes that sparkled in the sunlight overhead. Her skin was timeless - she looked to be Leo's age, but Leo knew better than to assume she was really just a teenager.

"Is this what you wanted?" the girl asked, and Leo noted the disdain in her voice before slipping into unconsciousness.

* * *

"Good," someone said as Leo felt bright light sear his retinas through his eyelids. "You're awake. You need to sit up and drink this."

Leo groaned, feeling something cool against his forehead, and slurred sleepily, "Piper, go away. I'm fine."

The pressure on his forehead shifted slightly, like whoever held the cold compress had tensed. "Piper?" she echoed, and Leo realized belatedly that that definitely wasn't the voice of his best friend. "Is she your beloved?"

Leo blinked his eyes open with a sincere, if pained, laugh. His chest throbbed from the effort. "As if she'd ever go for a Repair Boy like me," he joked, opening his eyes on a familiar pretty girl. He frowned. "Hey, you're the one that saved my sphere?"

Leo noticed she was perched on the side of his bed, and there was nightstand to the left of his head. She motioned at the tabletop, where the sphere was freshly washed and shiny. "I can't imagine why you would be so invested in a bunch of metal, but yes. I saved it for you." She patted Leo's head with the washcloth. "You heated up on the way down, you know. Your temperature was too high to be survivable. Are you a son of Poseidon?"

Leo had no clue what sons of Poseidon could accomplish with heat, but he decided against arguing with the pretty girl. "No. Hephaestus. And being too hot for my own good is kind of normal for me." He wiggled his eyebrows at the double entendre, but the girl only wrinkled her nose in confusion.

"That can't be healthy," she assumed blithely, leaning back to dip the washcloth in water again. Leo stopped her hand before she could start patting him again. "Oh, of course." She replaced the washcloth and picked up a glass of what looked like nectar. Leo snatched it away from her eagerly, laughing against the rim and he downed three good swallows. "Easy," she warned. "You could kill yourself."

Leo stiffened and set the nectar aside, half-drunk. "Thanks," he croaked bashfully. Then he wiped his mouth and held out his hand. "I'm Leo Valdez, Mechanic Extraordinaire and Supreme Commander of the _Argo II. _And you would be . . .?"

The girl tilted her head to the side at Leo's introduction, shaking his hand uncertainly. "I-I'm Calypso. Supreme Commander? Is that what they call generals now?"

Leo made a face. "What? No." Then he sat up and fixed his charred collar, noting that he needed some new clothes. "But if you think I look like a general . . ."

The girl looked unimpressed. "Hardly. You're too lanky and young." She stood abruptly, leaving Leo to wonder if he had, for a change, gotten burned. "I will have the servants prepare dinner while you change clothes. I made new ones for you on the loom while you were asleep." She pointed on a neatly folded piles of clothes on the floor in the corner. Next to them was Leo's tool belt. "Please be ready in the next thirty minutes. I hate to leave my food sit cold, and I never eat before my guest."

And then she left.

Calypso. Leo played with her name on his tongue while he stripped and redressed in her cleaner, nicer attire. A button-up light brown shirt, khaki pants - things that Leo would have never worn otherwise. The ensemble was ironic with his tool belt, but he didn't care enough to protest. As Leo fixed his suspenders - he simply couldn't part with the completion of his wardrobe - he started to wonder about the _Argo II_; had Piper and the others gotten away from Khione safely? Were they already in Epirus, rescuing Percy and Annabeth?

Leo pursed his lips as concern pooled in his stomach, and he resolved to ask Calypso at the earliest opportunity.

And that train of thought sparked a completely different question: Why did the name Calypso ring some a strong bell in his memory, now that he was cooled off and healthy . . . er? He knew he had heard that name at least in passing. Was she, like, a famous one of those lady-demons who bewitched boys into falling in love with them so they could kill them? Or something of the equivalent? No, he decided. That just didn't sound right. Maybe just a friendly healing goddess? In the middle of the ocean. On an island conveniently in the middle of the Mediterranean where Leo could crash-land perfectly.

He remembered Khione, how she had flung him off the ship to his doom. Why wouldn't she send him to a hostile island? Calypso was probably her demonic half-sister or something. It would certainly add up with the whole being knock-dead gorgeous part. And what was that crack about generals, like she honestly had no idea what was going on around the world? How long had she been on this island? And, more importantly, if she was goddess, why didn't she just go find out everything herself? Why depend on "lanky and young" boys to tell her?

Leo ran his fingers through his hair, thinking hard, but just then, something smelling suspiciously like well-seasoned and freshly cooked meat wafted in on the breeze. "Leo?" Calypso called. "Are you hungry?"

Evil goddess or not, she knew the way into a guy's heart.


End file.
